PITTSBORO – When Audrey Burleson and her family moved into their $475,000 five-bedroom home in Chatham County’s The Parks at Meadowview community in 2011, she says they knew the risk.

Construction of new homes at the 793-acre development had halted three years earlier. Plans for The Parks had included 576 homesites when completed, and only 11 homes had been built so far.

But construction could soon start again at The Parks at Meadowview, as well as at the 588-acre Hidden Lake community near Youngsville that had was also shelved during the residential downturn.

The original developer of the gated communities, Crescent Communities of Charlotte, recently finalized the sale of both properties.

In 2007, when both communities were ramping up, custom homes in The Parks at Meadowview were starting in the $500,000s, with individual homesites selling from the $100,000s. Custom homes at Hidden Lake were listed as starting at $900,000, and individual homesites were selling from the low $200,000s.

The Chatham County site for The Parks at Meadowview, which connects into the Chapel Ridge golf community, has been sold for nearly $5.4 million to Pittenger Land Investments Inc. of Charlotte. Pittenger Land is the real estate investment firm owned and managed by the family of U.S. Rep. Robert Pittenger.

The Franklin County site for Hidden Lake was sold for $3.4 million to a Raleigh investor group led by the owners of custom homebuilding group Ange Signature Homes and Linda Leith of Leith Auto Group, according to county records.

Todd Mansfield, president and CEO of Crescent Communities, says that after Crescent came out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2010, company leaders decided to focus only on the “best locations” in the region. “We had a handful of assets – legacy assets – that we decided to part ways with, and we’ve sold many of them over the last three years.”

Crescent is retaining ownership of the 650-acre Retreat on Haw River property in northern Chatham County and continues to look for new development opportunities, but sources say the company was too deep in the hole financially to want to return to any of the properties.

It’s estimated that Crescent spent about $30 million on the construction of roads, parks and other infrastructure at The Parks at Meadowview before pulling the plug on the project in 2008.

The company also invested millions into the development of Hidden Lake, which already has a lake house amenity center, boat house and outdoor pavilion along the shores of its 75-acre private lake. About 10 homes were built at Hidden Lake out of 124 proposed home sites.

Scott Hammerbacher, Franklin County’s planning director, says he has had some preliminary discussions with the engineers representing the new owners of Hidden Lake, but no new site plan for the property has been filed. “I’ve love to see that community turned around and be viable again,” he says.

Burleson at The Parks at Meadowview says the new development owners haven’t reached out to meet the current residents yet, but she’s hopeful that future development will keep with the high standards that Crescent had set for the community. “It’s a nice place to be right now, and I hope it will continue to be,” she says.

Barry Bowling of CBRE-Raleigh represented Crescent Communities in its sale of The Parks at Meadowview, and Justin Good of Cassidy Turley in Raleigh represented Crescent in the sale of Hidden Lake.

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